CONCORD, N.C. -- H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler never met a promotion he didn't like, and in the last 33 years has been in the middle of plenty of them.

So even though Wheeler, 69 -- who'll retire after this weekend's Coca-Cola 600 from his dual roles as CEO and president of Speedway Motorsports Inc. and president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway -- don't expect him to go away.

Even as he made the announcement last Wednesday, industry talk had Wheeler communicating with NASCAR chairman Brian France about a possible role with the sanctioning body.

It doesn't seem possible to imagine the NASCAR racing landscape without Wheeler's sizeable presence involved; and it's a cinch that Lowe's Motor Speedway will be radically different without Wheeler's involvement.

This is a man who once placed his entire face inside a tiger's mouth, rode a circus elephant and had his likeness imprinted on fake one million dollar bills -- all in the interest of promoting Lowe's Motor Speedway, SMI and its events.

As he made the announcement that he'd step aside, Wheeler said he had a number of activities up his sleeve, most of them motorsports-related.

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It seems that would only be fitting for the native of Belmont, N.C., who played football at the University of South Carolina, had a successful term as a multiple-champion Golden Gloves boxer before working as a sportswriter, real estate manager and a dirt-track stock-car race promoter early in his professional career.

All of those elements were integral parts of Wheeler's bent for promotion and fan interaction; but he really began honing his skills at the upper levels of American motorsports when he served in a variety of executive positions in the racing division at Firestone Rubber & Tire Co. from 1964 through 1971.

Wheeler went to work for SMI chairman and chief executive officer Bruton Smith in 1975 and has been general manager since 1976. He was named president in 1980.

"Humpy Wheeler is a true legend in motorsports and his contributions will be missed," Smith said. "His career with Lowe's Motor Speedway and Speedway Motorsports Inc. has been filled with many innovative promotions and I am sure that he will be remembered as one of the greatest promoters in racing history."

The outgoing Wheeler is well-known in racing circles for his wit, accessibility and relentless promoting of the sport.

"While it is with sadness that I announce my retirement from Speedway Motorsports and Lowe's Motor Speedway, it is time for me to move on to other things," Wheeler said. "I have devoted my entire life to racing and I don't intend on leaving it, just serving it in different ways.

"I have made arrangements with a well-known author to co-write a unique book interweaving my various experiences in the sport with the wonderful human drama and rich characters that abound in it.

"I will resume the Humpy Show on SPEED Channel and look forward to being chairman of the Charlotte Regional Partnership in 2009. I also look forward to other endeavors, including lecturing and working with the motorsports management program at Belmont Abbey College."

Wheeler and Smith was a dynamic, never-resting pair who established a number of motorsports firsts, including becoming the first superspeedway lit for night racing, which Wheeler accomplished in time for the 1992 version of The Winston, the forerunner of the current Sprint All-Star Race.

Smith and Wheeler set a standard that has yet to be widely duplicated except by their own SMI facilities when they built 40 condominiums outside Turn 1 of what was then known as Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1984. That facility currently has 52 units.

Wheeler oversaw the speedway's expansion to its current 167,000 grandstand seats, as well as an extensive program of corporate hospitality suites. Smith and Wheeler also facilitated in 1988 the construction of Smith Tower, a seven-story 135,000-square-foot facility connected to the speedway's grandstands.

The building houses the speedway's corporate offices, ticket office, souvenir gift shop, leased office space and The Speedway Club, a dining and entertainment facility that is used for a number of speedway promotional events.

Trading off his Golden Gloves experience, Wheeler at one time had a boxing ring erected on the racetrack's frontstretch where a number of prizefights were staged. Obviously, that raised speculation that drivers could settle on-track disputes in the ring, but this was never attempted.

Perhaps Wheeler's signature note, which raised his profile to one of great hyperbolic renown, is his pre-race shows.

Virtually nothing has been too outrageous for Wheeler to attempt, including reenactments of the invasion of Grenada and certain aspects of the first Gulf War; several appearances by a car-crushing mechanical monster, "Robosaurus;" and actually blowing up a home that was constructed specifically for that purpose.

According to media members who were privy to the plan that never saw the light of day was a proposed promotion whereby Wheeler would have announced that the late Saddam Hussein had been captured and was located somewhere in Lowe's Motor Speedway's infield -- where his capture would result in a sizeable bounty for some fan.

And to Wheeler, fan involvement and entertainment always ruled most of what he attempted.

Last year, Wheeler said on ESPNHD's Ultimate NASCAR: The Explosion, that "the working man of the South and later on the country is what made NASCAR and what is making NASCAR right now.

"We've got all these companies in it and we got presidents of companies up in the suites, but it is the working person of America that is still the core race fan of NASCAR no matter what anybody says. That's the way it is."

It's that understanding that drove virtually everything Wheeler did, including the development of the multi-faceted 600 Racing program that builds and sanctions races for Legends Cars and a number of related chassis types that successfully established the mass-production of relatively low-cost race vehicles and made them widely available and organized.

Wheeler oversaw the development of many elements on Lowe's Motor Speedway's 2,000-acre complex, including a 2.25-mile road course in the speedway's infield; a quarter-mile oval located within the track's frontstretch; and a dirt, one-fifth-mile oval located outside the facility's backstretch.

In May 2000, The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway, a four-tenths-mile clay oval with nearly 15,000 seats, was opened to run dirt Late Model, Modified, Sprint Car and Monster Truck events, among others.

Obviously, some of the more renowned Wheeler events were better left to the participants, such as a 1979 appearance by the "Kilgore Rangerettes," apparently a female drill team from a junior college in Kilgore, Texas, that was earmarked to appear in one of the aforementioned pre-race extravaganzas.

One of the more arcane, insider-oriented Wheeler events occurred in the late 1970s when the speedway was going to demolish its original press box to enable the construction of new grandstand suites and a new press facility. After the fall Cup event, Wheeler brought several cases of malt beverages to the press box and, when the remaining writers had filed their stories, invited them to "drink the beer and destroy the place, as much as [they] were able to, with their bare hands," on of the men who was present related.

Allegedly, photographs of one of the writers "drop-kicking smashed ceiling tiles" exists somewhere in the archives of LMS to this day.

And a journalist said that he and Wheeler reminisced about that event this week, with the outgoing executive recalling "he had no idea how he had gotten home that night."

Thankfully, the journalist was the designated driver that evening, so he remembered the events very well.

And so was Wheeler remembered and cited throughout his career.

In April 2006, Wheeler was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. He is also a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame and the North Carolina Public Relations Hall of Fame.

"I'm grateful to the fans, the staff, the media, the sponsors and everyone who has helped me throughout my racing career," Wheeler said at his retirement event. "I have been blessed with a wonderful family and many close and dear friends who I hope to spend more time with.

"The people I've met along the way -- from the Salt Flats of Bonneville, to Indianapolis, to my early dirt-track days, to the wild ride of NASCAR to the top -- have furnished me with experiences beyond my wildest dreams. For a boy from the little town of Belmont, N.C., who dreamed of a racing career, I can only say that it ain't over yet.

"I look forward to addressing the crowd for the last time at Lowe's Motor Speedway Sunday during my 32nd Coca-Cola 600, and thanking them for being there because without them we have nothing."

Smith turned the recognition back on Wheeler.

"We owe Humpy a tremendous debt of gratitude for all he has done for Speedway Motorsports and Lowe's Motor Speedway," Smith said. "We wish him all the best in any future endeavors and hope that he and his wife Pat have a great retirement with their family."